The present invention pertains to a control center for a communications system wherein a plurality of radio channels, each of which includes a base station and a plurality of mobile transceivers, are monitored and controlled by a single operator. A control center of this type is described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,577,080, entitled "Remote Control System for Operation Over Same Audio Channel Providing Voice Signals Between Remote Station and Base Station" and assigned to the same assignee. In many instances it is desirable for mobiles on one channel to converse with mobiles on another channel or to have access to telephone lines. It is essential that the operator be equipped to monitor each and every channel and that cross patching between channels or phone patching between a channel and telephone lines be quickly and easily performed by the operator. Further, the various components of the control center should be constructed so that additional channels can be easily added and patching capabilities can be included or excluded in each channel as desired.
At present, there are a variety of base stations, including DC controlled, tone controlled, two-wire simplex operation, four-wire full duplex operation, etc., and it may be necessary to control any or all of these base stations from a single control center. Further, tone controlled base stations generally require a first recognition or unmuting frequency followed by one of two operating frequencies, both of which must be available in the control center. In addition to these relatively major problems, many minor considerations, such as installation convenience, operator convenience and ease of control are included in the control center disclosed herein.